Cooperative Gardens Commission
FOUNDED IN MARCH 2020, THE COOPERATIVE GARDENS COMMISSION (CGC) IS A GRASSROOTS COLLECTIVE WORKING TOWARD FOOD SOVEREIGNTY IN RESPONSE TO THE COVID19 PANDEMIC AND PERSISTENT INJUSTICE.
Who We Are
The CGC is composed of hundreds of volunteers from across the United States and Canada working as a collective to facilitate sharing of resources — including seeds, soil, equipment, labor, land, and knowledge — and build solidarity across traditional divides. We are farmers, gardeners, activists, and organizers. We believe increasing local food production can help build community power and resilience.
While CGC began developing a new network in the face of this tragic pandemic — and the ineffective government response to it — we recognize that the movement for food sovereignty and against food apartheid is wide and deep, so we primarily seek to support the work of existing networks and projects.
Our Principles
#CoopGardens is a movement for everyone — regardless of race, ethnicity, gender identity, sexuality, survivor status, ability, nationality, language, economic status, appearance, age, religion, immigration or documentation status, background, health, or any other personal characteristic.
We practice consensus-based decision-making that makes time for all opinions to be aired. We also work to create a community that holds space for the wisdom and experience of Black, Brown, and Indigenous people, immigrants, members of LGBTQIA+ communities, women, elders, the chronically ill, disabled, and immunocompromised people, and all others who are far too often marginalized by our society — or worse. We do not tolerate violence or oppressive behavior of any kind.
Support our 5th Year of Seed Distribution!
Don’t underestimate how far your donation can go!
One box sent to a Seed Hub, on average, can provide 300 family-sized seed bundles. Each bundle has at least 15 varieties of food crops.
Seed Hub Applications for 2024 are now closed
Please email us at cooperativegardens@gmail.com if you missed the boat and want to learn about how to get seeds in the future.
See our 2023 Report!
See pictures and read stories of the impact our seed distribution work has on communities across the country! All of these seeds were donated by seed companies and then shipped out of our central hub in Philadelphia.
Join Our Organizing Calls
Our next Organizing Call will happen via Zoom. Register below to get the link!
Photo by Grace Winter Photography
Call for Seed Hub Photos!
Do you love what we do? Want to support the 2024 effort?
If you're a Seed Hub, please send us your photos. We all love to know where the seeds have gone, what they've been up to, any joy they've wrought, and what you were most excited about!
Email Photos and Notes to us at:
CooperativeGardens @ Gmail.com
Please include your Seed Hub Name and notes about your project!
The 2023 Garden Planner is available now!
This is a FREE 40-page Garden Planner PDF that can be printed at Staples and shipped to you anywhere for as little as $16 before shipping. Or you can print it from home or any other location of your choice!
This has been created to help the folx signing up to be Seed Hubs, new and experienced food growers, and seed savers. It is a tool to map out a plan for the year, and track progress, as well as monthly and annual goals.
Cooperative Gardens Commission
In 2020 we came together and distributed free seeds to 248 Seed Hubs around the US and beyond. You can read about our initial goals and accomplishments in the 2020 Report!
In 2021 we reached 305-405 Seed Hubs through the collective and developing efforts and partnerships of the Commissioners!
Best viewed in Adobe Acrobat
Seed Distribution Hubs
Are you a new seed hub wanting to find out more about how to help your community grow food? Click the box below to find our resources for seed hubs!
A Roadmap to Reparative Foodways
As a collective we support reparative measures, which we define as personal acts and social policies of restorative justice. Studying reparations led AoA Working Group members to look for examples where “Reparations” have been applied as recompense for cultural acts of genocide, slavery, child theft, exploitation, land theft and injustice that established the inequities we live with and are harmed by or privileged with, here and now. Reparative measures are inevitable if we live by our words. Reparative measures seek ways to serve to right the relationship between those actively harmed by, and those privileged by, inequitable and unfair norms, assumptions, laws, and mass culture.
How Can You Bring Grass Roots Reparative Measures to Your Community?